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What is too much freedom in player input into customizing the world? I am currently making it to where all shops and shop greetings can be customized to players wants. All items that are crafted are also able to be named. I love the players having input into the game world, but the problem I see is that some disgruntled players will rename all their shops and items some inappropriate things. Something I would like to avoid is filters that prevent bad things from being put as names and things, but they always seem to pick up words that are not really bad, which can be very frustrating.

Are in-game and player moderators the only other defense against this problem? What are some other ways? Is it potentially as big of a problem as I fear?

I personally think that in game-mods are the best for catching those things, but really, the effect that inappropriate language would have on the players depends on how mature you think your audience will be. If you are aiming for a more mature audience, let it go and just monitor to make sure nothing TOO bad is posted on there, but still letting most things slide. If you want a younger audience, I would say filter it, though I dont really like filters that much unless I feel that they are necessary. And lastly, if you want an audience of all ages, I would sy dont filter it, monitor it, and make a TOS, where you mention something like "Online interactions not rated" as a small disclaimer for yourself. Hope that helped!

I think you are right. Try and avoid filters and have in-game mods and myself monitor for anything really really bad and let the rest slide. Does anyone else have an opinion?

Maybe you can make a bit of code that will say when naming their shop or item when they name a censored thing it will go like "Inappropriate name go back and change it please."?

Well, you know you have freedom when someone doesn't like what you could and did say!

One idea is people can only name things with the components you provide them. Like naming an inn, the make the name out of several drop boxes with options you fill in. Also players could submit new additions to those drop boxes for your consideration.

Another thing I've considered is a trust permissions method - where you give permission to certain players and they can give permission to others (up to X generations). What happens is the sign remains blank until one of these people approves it. If someone reports it still, you can see who gave the permission for it and more importantly, who gave them permission to be able to do that in the first place. That way you can cull off anyone who keeps giving out judgement permission to lame people.

Finally is this an issue of swearing, or is it an issue of verisimilitude? If the latter, remember in real life people have named puddings 'spotted dick' and such.

A much worse problem than bad language is out-of-context names. If you are trying to make a serious game in some kind of setting besides modern-day real-world, having a shop called "Burger King" is going to be a distraction for most players, but how can you enforce a rule like this? To be very specific, every player who creates any names would have to be very familiar with your game's lore and world. That was a problem in some MUDs such as Achaea that had advanced support for player-created items and content. I once made a necklace with a dolphin on it, but it was rejected by the live team because "dolphins don't exist in this world". How was I supposed to know that? But if it had not been inspected first, then I would have just invented dolphins in that game world when the live team did not want them for some reason.

If the swearing is appropriate for the situation to add to the environment. Say for example you walk into a tavern and the description is "As you enter the tavern after many days of exploring you observe the patrons. You notice several older adventures sharing stories with a small audience at the bar. Somewhere in the back room you hear a 'd*** you!' from a fellow who feels cheated in a card game." That is fine with me because it adds to the feel of actually being there. I just do not want someone naming a good food item '$h*t' then whenever you eat it it says ' you just ate $h*t'. To me that ruins the experience and the role playing feel of the game. That type of thing is what I want to avoid. Also like jackolantern mentioned, having a 'walmart' material store would not feel very much like something you would find in most role playing game settings which kills some of the feel of the game.

Funny, I'm certain there are necklaces in the real world with dragons on them. Why couldn't a fantasy world have a mythical 'Dolphin' "It has a hole in the top of it's head it breathes through, and it's not even a fish! It's a mammal! How made up is that! Rediculous! Anyway, I'm off to fight some orcs and dragons."

Anyway, I suppose I can't argue - right from the start I set up my game to have a seperate value for a characters screen name, that I manually fill in - and if I haven't filled it in, they show up with only the first two letters of their log in and (unknown strange #id number) after it.

Funny, I'm certain there are necklaces in the real world with dragons on them. Why couldn't a fantasy world have a mythical 'Dolphin' "It has a hole in the top of it's head it breathes through, and it's not even a fish! It's a mammal! How made up is that! Rediculous! Anyway, I'm off to fight some orcs and dragons."

Hahahaha

But really, I myself am also wondering if I should give the players the option to name their units (not all, only some, like custom units), because it would be cool to be able to do that for a few units, but on the other hand, as discussed, things could really get away from the game's lore, and that isn't what I want at all!

62896dude wrote: ...but on the other hand, as discussed, things could really get away from the game's lore, and that isn't what I want at all!

That is very true. I also want to avoid that. On the other hand if the players want to have food shops named taco bell and inns named holiday inn perhaps they should be allowed to? Would that ruin the game's 'feel' for the hard core role players? In my game I want it to be a player built world with player established shops, but I also want to hold on to the role playing aspect.